Assignment 2: Mapping Fire Incidents and FDNY Response Times
Bhushan Newalkar
2017-03-21
Fires in NYC and FDNY Response
Tasks
1. Location of Severe Fires
Provide a leaflet map of the severe fires contained in the file severe_incidents.csv. Ignore locations that fall outside the five boroughs of New York City. Provide at least three pieces of information on the incident in a popup.
Solution:
Following map displays the geographical locations of the severe fire incidents occurred in five boroughs of New York City. Click on the circles on the map for more information about the incidence
2. Layers and Clusters
a) Color by Type of Property
Start with the previous map. Now, distinguish the markers of the fire locations by PROPERTY_USE_DESC, i.e. what kind of property was affected. If there are too many categories, collapse some categories. Choose an appropriate coloring scheme to map the locations by type of affected property. Add a legend informing the user about the color scheme. Also make sure that the information about the type of affected property is now contained in the popup information. Show this map.
Solution:
The properties affected are differentiated in 12 different categories mentioned in the legend. Click on the circles on the map for more information about the incidence and the affected property.
b) Cluster
Add marker clustering, so that zooming in will reveal the individual locations but the zoomed out map only shows the clusters. Show the map with clusters.
Solution:
The nearby incidence are clustered together. When you zoom in smaller clusters and then eventually individual locations will be revealed.
3. Fire Houses
The second data file contains the locations of the 218 firehouses in New York City. Start with the non-clustered map (2b) and now adjust the size of the circle markers by severity (TOTAL_INCIDENT_DURATION or UNITS_ONSCENE seem plausible options). More severe incidents should have larger circles on the map. On the map, also add the locations of the fire houses. Add two layers (“Incidents”, “Firehouses”) that allow the user to select which information to show.
Solution:
The following map contains multiple layers. You can use the layer controller at the top-right corner of the map to switch between base layers and the data layers. There are three base layers for 3 different tiles for the map and two data layers displaying two different informations, 1)Fire Incidences and 2)Fire Houses.
4. Distance from Firehouse and Response Time
We now want to investigate whether the distance of the incident from the nearest firehouse varies across the city.
a) Calculate Distance
For all incident locations, identify the nearest firehouse and calculate the distance between the firehouse and the incident location. Provide a scatter plot showing the time until the first engine arrived (the variables INCIDENT_DATE_TIME and ARRIVAL_DATE_TIME) will be helpful. If there are any interesting patterns to highlight, feel free to do so.
Solution:
Following scatter plot graph plots the response times against the severity of the fire incidences (duration). Different plots are shown for different property types.
b) Map of Response Times
Provide a map visualization of response times. Feel free to differentiate by incident type / property affected etc. if that is interesting.
Solution:
Following map displays the information of response times. Responses to the fire incidences are categorized in four categories mentioned in the legend.